A gath'ring mist o'erclouds her cheerful eyes; And from her cheeks the rosy colour flies, Then turns to her, whom of her female train She trusted most, and thus she speaks with pain: "Acca, 'tis past! he swims before my sight, Inexorable Death, and claims his right. Bear my last words to Turnus; fly with speed And bid him timely to my charge succeed; Repel the Trojans, and the town relieve: Farewell." DRYDEN. Turnus did not die in so heroic a manner, though our poet seems to have had his eye upon Turnus's speech in the last verse: Lord Percy sees my fall. --_Vicisti_, _et victum tendere palmas_ _Ausonii videre_. VIRG., _AEn._ xii. 936. The Latin chiefs have seen me beg my life. DRYDEN. Earl Percy's lamentation over his enemy is generous, beautiful, and passionate. I must only caution the reader not to let the simplicity of the style, which one may well pardon in so old a poet, prejudice him against the greatness of the thought: Then leaving life, Earl Percy took The dead man by the hand, And said, "Earl Douglas, for thy life Would I had lost my land. "O Christ! my very heart doth bleed With sorrow for thy sake; For sure a more renowned knight Mischance did never take." That beautiful line, "Taking the dead man by the hand," will put the reader in mind of AEneas's behaviour towards Lausus, whom he himself had slain as he came to the rescue of his aged father: _At vero ut vultum vidit morientis et ora_, _Ora modis Anchisiades pallentia miris_; _Ingemuit_, _miserans graviter_, _dextramqne tetendit_. VIRG., _AEn._ x. 821. The pious prince beheld young Lausus dead; He grieved, he wept, then grasped his hand and said, "Poor hapless youth! what praises can be paid To worth so great?" DRYDEN. I shall take another opportunity to consider the other parts of this old song. Part Two. --_Pendent opera interrupta_. VIRG., _AEn._ iv. 88. The works unfinished and neglected lie. In my last Monday's paper I gave some general instances of those beautiful strokes which please the reader in the old song of "Chevy-Chase;" I shall here, according to my promise, be more particular, and show that the sentiments in that ballad are extremely natural and poetical, and full of the majestic simplicity which we admire in the greatest of the ancient poets: for which reason I shall quote several passages of it, in which the thought is altogether the same with what we meet in several passages of the "AEneid;" not that I would infer from thence that the poet, whoever he was, proposed to himself any imitation of those passages, but that he was directed to them in general by the same kind of poetical genius, and by the same copyings after nature.